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Chewers by Masticadores @chewersmasticadores.wordpress.com@chewersmasticadores.wordpress.com · 2026-08-01 · 04:00 UTC

5 Poems on Reading by Yongbo Ma

Reading Homer in Autumn

Generations fall like withered leaves, and so shall we.
The spark within my heart has faded out.
No passion lingers any longer.
Only compassion for all mortal beings
fills my breast. I yearn for no one,
nor wish to meet a soul.
All bonds may be erased at a stroke.
All people and events have nothing to do with me.
I am even weary of the glaring daylight,
which leaves me no place to hide.
I only long for night to come soon,
to veil me in shadow, and conceal
all things I no longer care for.
All things stand bare, stripped of secrets.
With weary sympathy,
I watch them wail and fade.

~~

Reading Virgil in Autumn

Before facing the future, return first to the silence of the dead.
Phantoms shun you three times. Even your own father
passes dreadfully through the yard, his long hair ablaze, his face unseen.

Those phantoms drifting in the air pierce straight into your eyes.
Every embrace of ecstasy passes hollow and unfulfilled,
while suffering, woven with memories of suffering,
becomes sorrow doubled upon sorrow.
Enjoying is the gate of ivory, suffering the gate of horn.
Whichever gate you take to leave the underworld,
you return to the same lost path.

Dido looks Aeneas up and down,
her desperate silence drifting like white doves upon heaving tides.
Smoke curling upward from the funeral pyre,
and masts dwindling low above the sea
measure the helpless rift between love and duty.

After death, we are mere shadows, never to walk the mortal world again.
Though surrounded by shades of the departed,
it cannot compare to carving oars beneath the sun.
See how the wedge-shaped prow rises high once more,
its hull cleaving the water, ploughing through the waves—
exile itself becomes homeland, and all things have only just begun.

Therefore, Virgil—my guide, my master—
I shall take jagged reefs for an altar,
no longer dividing the underworld from the living world.
From you alone, I learn the true meaning of courage.
As for fate, I must turn to others for answers.

~~

Reading Heine in Autumn

This Romanzero has followed me since my youth,
its pages dotted with time’s brown spots
each like an egg waiting to hatch, or the origin of a cosmic big bang,
dipping my nose in, there rises the scent of the finest cider cask.

For many years, you’ve looked at me, yet I never met your gaze.
I knew you existed, like an old friend with whom all correspondence lapsed.
When you compared women to lice, their nightly reprisals
made me laugh. But when your purse was empty, you lay paralyzed in bed,
your friends vanished along with the mosquitoes.
When you had nowhere to go, just like me, I sighed in secret.

The coal-smoke tang of England, Russia’s icy whip,
America, where the whole nation chews tobacco and spits recklessly,
and my nation that lives without any stance.
When I tire of amusing little men,
my weary feet wear no golden sandals—
no longer can I step to the springs of Helicon.
No longer can I, like you, let my heart’s blood flow in songs of flame.

Those ancient cloud omens have long dispersed,
even when temporarily gilded by the setting sun,
like ten thousand sheep rolling their golden fleece westward.
The world today remains as it was in your time:
walls of wood shavings, spiders’ silk, a thimbleful of wine.
Even the rough passion and the mutual torments of souls
no longer exist. The loyalty of home and the shirt off one’s back—
we wear them tattered in foreign lands,
perhaps just enough to patch the cracks in the universe’s structure.

Clouds and golden rains bring only disaster; swans and bulls
are best kept at a distance, like those poets
who seem unable to go on living. Now I can only
use rhymes to loosely bind the scattered grains of rice,
lest they burst and scatter on my back like waves,
like the holy Thomas, who dared not believe even his own wounds.

Better to tell the children: go to the monastery.
To those who have much, more will be given. From those who have little,
even what little they have will be taken away.
Or like Althaea, take the quenched logs from the chest
and hurl them again into the eternal fire.

~~

Reflections on Reading The Divine Comedy in Early Winter

Before dusk descends, the dimming sky
drives away all living things on earth. All wither and fall,
not a moment left for even the faintest sigh,
no mercy, no hope, no redemption.
Alone you stand, ready to wrestle with your journey.

The sun, that once chased away all vexing phantoms,
melts into grey skies and mist.
It answers your doubts no more,
nor stirs your flame to sudden height.
Knowledge and ignorance alike bring you no joy.

Keep silent, and let time drift on.
Let bitter cold lay bare the stark, naked truth.
Let one thought wear away the power of another.
Let the wind blow from east to west, changing names.
Let aimless hatred turn the orbit of your being.

~~

Reading Old Books Behind Closed Doors in Winter

The afternoon light and shadow linger motionless on the wall,
and you stay still, for a long while.
Only the deepening cold beneath your knees
tells you dusk has fallen.
The mountains beyond the city darken even earlier.

Eliot once said all great works
are rooted in weariness of life.
You are not yet great, for you only grow weary
of other people’s lives, especially in winter,
when every human act stands stark and exposed.

A dying man seethes in quiet rage.
Winter fades through alabaster windows.
Crows upon the meadow leave behind a charred book.
Whoever opens it shall fly away, crying hoarse,
casting a cold, indifferent glance upon the world.

#autumn #books #day #night #phantoms #reading #winter

#autumn #books #day #night #phantoms #reading

:awesome:🐦‍🔥nemo™🐦‍⬛ 🇺🇦🍉 @[email protected] · 2024-07-03 · 04:21 UTC

🎬 Phantoms (1998) is a chilling supernatural horror film based on the Dean Koontz novel. This eerie tale of a mysterious evil force terrorizing a small town is a must-watch for fans of the genre! #Phantoms #DeanKoontz #HorrorMovie #Supernatural #Thriller #PeterOToole #RoseMcGowan #BenAffleck